Joan Ridder Challinor is the former chairperson of the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science

National Commission on Libraries and Information Science

The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science was an agency in the United States government between 1970 and 2008. The activities of the Commission were consolidated into the Institute of Museum and Library Services.-Origins:...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Joan Challinor was appointed to the commission by President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 in 1995. She was designated as its chairperson on July 20, 2003 and served until January 28, 2004.

Dr. Challinor served as vice chairperson of the commission from 2000 to 2003. She was succeeded as Chairperson by Beth Dustan Fitzsimmons.

Background

Challinor serves as the Chairperson of the Advisory Committee of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Radcliffe College

Radcliffe College

Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...

, and she is a member of the Madison Council at the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

. She is a founding member of the Louis Round Wilson Academy. In addition, she is a director of media conglomerate Knight-Ridder.

Publications

• Joan R. Challinor,Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams: The Price of Ambition (Ph.D. dissertation, American University, 1982), 178 pages. [In his article 'Henry Adams and the Making of America' (New York Times, September 11, 2005), Garry Wills says, "Joan Challinor...has written the most complete account of Louisa's life..." Louisa Catherine (Johnson) Adams was the wife of John Quincy Adams
  John Quincy Adams
  John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
  
  . http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/books/chapters/0911-1st-wills.html?pagewanted=print]
• Joan R. Challinor and Robert L. Beisner, editors, Arms at rest: Peacemaking and peacekeeping in American history (New York : Greenwood Press, 1987).
• Allan J. Lichtman and Joan R. Challinor, editors, Kin and communities: families in America (Washington : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979).